Poor Tim Graham is confused:
Beyond the traditional drop-the-D reporting, there is the question if the national media will find this newsworthy. The easy guess is that if the politician is openly gay and the teenager is consenting, they will find it’s not.
In 2005, when the mayor of Spokane, Washington was a conservative “anti-gay” Republican and a teenager said he was unwilling, it was a big national story, including an NBC interview on Today and an entire Frontline documentary on PBS.
Imagine that. According to Tim, one story involves a mayor having sex with another willing adult, the other involves a a man forcing himself on a minor. For some strange reason, the media treats the rape of a minor differently from consensual sex with an adult, and the folks at Newsbusters just can’t figure out why.
I swear to God, the past eight years has created a super-breed of logic resistant Republican idiots.
(h/t via email)
kommrade reproductive vigor
More proof that when fRighties express concern for children, parents should reach for their guns.
bago
Consent is an alien concept to authoritarians.
BruinKid
Oh I see, it’s the old "teh gay" argument Graham’s using, eh?
BTW John, you need to fix the block quote from containing your own commentary. At first I thought that was part of Graham’s story, and it was making little sense.
RNinOR
if Adams were having an affair with an 18 y.o. woman, Graham would be praising him
Balconespolitics
Yeah, remember the details of the charges against Mayor Jim West?
Fondling Boy Scouts (who by definition are under 18 per BSA rules) is like starting a relationship with an 18 year old. In Bizarro-land.
Libby Spencer
Every time I hear them complain about the drop the D reporting, I’m reminded of how many times Faux Spews has misidentified GOP miscreants as Democrats. They never seem to notice that.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@Balconespolitics: If memory serves what got him booted was his use of his political office to get sexual favors. Using his office computer for said activities didn’t help.
My favorite:
But having said all that, Adams needs to be ready to GtFo.
CIRCVS MAXIMVS MMIX
You expected them to wake up smart today? Sorry John, the MUP ain’t quite THAT magical. That’s first wizard level, Obama’s still working on gaining that talent.
RNinOR
because, we’ve all been perfectly honest about every sexual liaison we’ve ever had.
J Royce
It’s what was called the "Wolf Virus" back in the heady day’s of 20th century fascism. Some never can recover.
There was an anecdote related in Shirer’s Berlin Diary about a joke that circulated in Germany after the RAF bombings began reaching the cities. The German government told people to try to nap during the day when possible, since the population had to take cover in bomb shelters during the night-time raids.
If someone came down into the bomb shelter (at night) and said "Good Morning" then that meant the person had been to sleep. If the arrival said "Good Evening" it meant the person had NOT been to sleep.
If the new arrival said, "Heil Hitler!" it meant the person had always been asleep.
Ha ha ha … I guess.
The Silent Fiddle of Nero
So is justice.
"Fair and Balanced" Dave
Balconespolitics @5
I have to take issue with the Spokesman-Review’s headline. When a man molests boys it isn’t "gay sex", it’s statutory rape.
Aside from not being able to understand the difference between two adults having consensual sex and an adult molesting children, Graham (like almost every wingnut) fails to see the hypocrisy factor here. Portland mayor Sam Adams is openly gay while Spokane mayor Jim West who, while in the State Legislature, supported a number of anti-gay measures including legislation to bar gay men and lesbians from working in schools, daycare centers, and other government agencies.
Kit Smith
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that it’s not teh gay sexz0rz that makes this news, it’s the hypocrisy of an anti-gay Republican who runs on his party’s platform of making people with his sexual orientation into second rate citizens getting caught with his "hand" in the "cookie jar."
Interrobang
A friend of mine from Portland says that in all likelihood the teenager in question (the porntastically-named Bo Breedlove) was 17 when the affair began. That’s statutory rape unless the age of (homosexual) consent is under 18 in Oregon. It’s still creepy for an 18 year old of either sex to be having an affair with a 45 year old of either sex, and I’d wonder about the power dynamics, but we don’t have laws against creepiness.
(One never quite knows about legality — for a long time in my home jurisdiction, a 17 year old girl could be having an affair legally with a 45 year old man, because the heterosexual age of consent was 16, but a 17 year old boy could not, because the homosexual age of consent was 18. Why it’s more okay for people to be having the kind of sex that might make babies at 16 and less okay to be having the kind of sex that doesn’t is beyond me. As a friend of mine said, "I prevent pregnancy using Lesbianism™. 100% effective if used every time!")
Nathan R
Do these folks not realize that Portland mayor is a non-partisan position?
ryan
They’re even morons on the "drop-the-D" front. They contrast not identifying Sam Adams’ party with the identification of the party of a Republican member of the statehouse.
Thing is, city elections in Portland are nonpartisan. We hold an open primary, which Adams won, and because he got over 50%, he didn’t even have to run in the general. And while he was ostensibly more liberal than his (main) opponent, neither ran with a party ID, and if they had, they both would have been Democrats, presumably. So, basically, there is no point to identifying the party of the mayor; he hasn’t run under one.
Of course, you wouldn’t know that from the article, but why should they attempt a clue about the way the city works when it gets in the way of their victimhood?
syl
Oregon’s age of consent is 18, so the mayor’s in trouble if your friend is right. But in most states the age of consent is 16 or 17. There are only about 10 states that set it at 18.
Leisureguy
It’s simply evolution in action: as the GOP became more intensely opposed to reality, natural selection resulted in those members who tried to cling to reality being ejected from the party as unsuitable. The core of the party now consists of wingnuts.
Brandon
Most local govt positions are, mostly because national political parties don’t theoretically have huge relevance at the city level. But it’s often a distinction without a difference–remember that the Wasilla mayor’s position was also nonpartisan, but when Palin ran for mayor she was attacking her opponent for being an anti-marriage, elite liberal while she was being endorsed by the NRA and right-to life groups.
Mnemosyne
I dunno — it’s possible that he waited for the guy to turn 18 to get physical. In the incredibly creepy Bob Greene scandal, he waited for her to turn 18 — specifically, her 18th birthday. Ew.
Rick Taylor
Wow, that is amazing. I went to the link thinking you must be exaggerating, but no. . . . that’s pretty much what it said. The media is biased because it doesn’t treat a consensual affair between legal adults the same way it treats rape of a minor.
Comrade grumpy realist
Also should point out that statutory rape is usually treated as a strict liability crime (it makes no difference whether you knew the individual involved was younger than the age of consent or not.)
One of those weird things I remember from my Crim Law class.
Gay Veteran
gee, does anyone think it’s pretty stupid for a politician to be fucking around with a 17 year old?